


From the Tree

by Imagining_in_the_Margins



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autism Spectrum, Death, F/M, Kidnapping, Protective Parents, Psychological Trauma, Self-Insert, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25672660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagining_in_the_Margins/pseuds/Imagining_in_the_Margins
Summary: The kidnapping case becomes personal when Spencer and Reader get a call from their nanny.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Reader, Spencer Reid/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 78





	From the Tree

The drive home after wrapping up a long case was always a good feeling. No matter the awful things we left behind, Spencer and I were always driving towards something better when we were finally on our way home. But now that I was seven months pregnant, the drive was dramatically more enjoyable. Not only would my own bed be better than whatever shitty motel we stayed at, Spencer and I would get to sleep cuddling both of our beautiful babies in our arms.

“I’m so ready to be going home.” I sighed, readjusting the very little possible in my seat with my giant pregnant belly in the way.

Spencer only looked over for a second, cleverly keeping his eyes on the road rather than me. But he raised his hand to mine that was holding my stomach, gently rubbing the area with a small smile.

“I know. This was hard. You deserve a break.” He said softly.

I think we were both mostly just grateful that it was still daytime. So often we came back on a redeye, but today was a beautiful day; the kind that would hopefully consist of swinging on the front porch and drawing silly chalk doodles on the driveway. If I could get through the squeezing without getting nauseous, I might actually make lemonade.

It was an idyllic fantasy I’d been finding myself sucked deeply into more and more often lately, and I knew that Spencer had noticed. He hadn’t said anything to me yet, and a part of me was worried that was his implicit rejection of the idea. Then again, I had to give him a chance to reject it eventually.

“Speaking of breaks… my maternity leave is fast approaching.” My voice shook, and I hoped he would write it off as the rumble of the car instead. “And I’ve been thinking…” I trailed off, not entirely sure how to finish the sentence after I’d already started it.

Thankfully, Spencer noted my hesitance and saved me from the embarrassment of a lost thought. “I know.”

“You know?” I repeated, laughing as his hand returned to the steering wheel.

“You’re _my wife_. Of course I know.”

It’d been five years, but it still made my heart flutter when he called me that. “What do you think about it?” I asked, compulsively smoothing out the wrinkles on my shirt and resisting the urge to cross my fingers.

Honestly, we hadn’t talked about my growing desire to leave the BAU. It was our home away from home— the place where we’d met and fallen in love. It felt strange to imagine a life without them every day, but… I wanted a life where my child knew us, too.

I knew that our daughter knew that she was loved, but it was hard. She hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to talk and had a lot of the early signs of autism, which wasn’t that surprising considering her father. Of course, she was only two, so there was no way to know for sure. But if she were autistic, it would be so much easier with one of us there with her.

Spencer knew that, too, I think. After all, he and his mother were close as could be. I think he wanted that for his kids, too.

“I think… I’d miss you on the jet. But I’d be happy knowing you’re at home with our kids.” There was a distinct excitement in his voice that he was trying to hide. Perhaps because he didn’t want me to influence my decision. But honestly, I’d made up my mind a long time ago.

“I’ll support you no matter what.” He assured me, and I believed him.

“Thanks, Spencer. I haven’t decided yet. We’ll see what happens.” I hummed, feeling the gentle vibrations of my phone coming from my briefcase.

“Better hurry. You never know when they’re going to decide to grace us with their presence.” My husband joked back, pointing an accusing finger to the little one now doing flips in my belly.

“Right.” I laughed, finally finding the offending object and glancing down to see a number that felt eerily familiar. “Hello?” I answered.

“Mrs. Reid?”

“This is she.” 

There are some things that you remember for the entire duration of your life. For Spencer, there were many, but for me, they were few and far between. That moment, where I answered a phone call like any other, was one of those moments. It was one that marked the death of the last shred of innocence I had.

Because as we turned the corner onto our street, the sun illuminating every terrible detail of the scene before us, I saw the flashes of red and blue light painting the white exterior of a house.

It was the police, and it was our house they were swarming.

So many things ran through my mind in that moment, it felt like another timeline. Another lifetime. But none of them ended up mattering, and the images that flashed through my head were equal parts horrifying and hopeful. They shouldn’t have been hopeful.

“ _There’s been an incident involving your daughter._ ” 

I heard his words, but they felt like nothing. My heart had already been torn out and shattered into pieces under the weight of the 4 cruisers blocking my driveway.

Any other noise was covered by Spencer’s frantic breathing next to me, the sound of our seat belts unbuckling as he stopped the car in the middle of the road. I hadn’t even waited for it to stop all the way before my door flung open.

My body couldn’t move fast enough, and I spotted the man holding the phone. Spencer’s hands held onto my arm, trying to hold me on the ground with him as we approached the men scattered around our lawn. The door to our house was open, and the nanny sat in the back of an ambulance, her face covered by the cold pack as she spoke to a deputy.

“What’s happening? Where is our daughter?” Spencer spoke first, in that authoritarian tone I only ever heard at work. The same one he had promised to never use against our family.

“Are you Spencer Reid?”

“Yes.” He replied curtly, trying to speed up the terrible inevitability we faced.

“Mr. and Mrs. Reid, I’m so sorry… But your daughter is gone.”

“What do you mean she’s gone?” I croaked, my throat tightening around the words that never should have been said.

“We got a call from the nanny reporting a home invasion. When she woke up, the child was gone.”

Spencer’s grip on my hand had never been this tight. At least, I think it was his hand. I couldn’t be sure which of was using more force, but together we were trapped in the crushing lock of our hands.

“I assure you that we are doing everything we can. But we’ll have some questions for you whenever you’re ready.”

He was still talking, but he sounded very far away. All my senses were overwhelmed by the darkness that our sunny suburban street had suddenly been plunged into. Every sound was muffled under the sound of the blood rushing through my ears. My vision was rapidly narrowing to a pinpoint, and the only thing I could feel was the pounding of my heart against my ribcage.

“(Y/n), look at me,” Spencer was saying, and it finally brought me out of my stupor. “It’s okay. Look at me.” He spoke through tears that I could hardly see through my own.

“Someone took my baby. Where is my baby?” I whispered, holding tight onto my stomach that suddenly felt repulsive and foreign. “Where’s my baby, Spencer? Where is our baby?”

“Look at me. You’re here with me. Breathe.”

Was he shaking, or was it me? It was impossible to tell, just like it was impossible to tell if the clouds had swamped over the sky or if my body was giving into the temptation of nothingness.

“My baby’s gone!” I finally yelled, trying to pull away from Spencer to go into the building that was supposed to be our home, marred with yellow tape and sad eyes. “They took my baby!” I screamed, my husband’s arms the only thing keeping me sane as we both fell to the grass still damp from the morning dew.

I would remember everything about this, but nothing more than I remembered the hurt.

“I’m here. I’m so sorry.” Spencer sobbed, burying his face in my neck as he held onto my flailing arms tearing at the earth beneath us. “I’m here.” He repeated over and over again, hoping that it would be enough. 

— _Twenty Hours Later_ —

Everything seems louder in the quiet. It made sense, and it was the thought my brain decided to fixate on in that moment, my eyes staring out the window of the BAU at the sunrise. It felt like it was mocking me, creating beautiful landscapes in front of me that I couldn’t feel anything for.

“Do you think she was scared?” I spoke the words out loud, hoping that they would drown out the static of the computer and the dripping of the pipes in the walls.

Spencer didn’t answer me. He stayed silent, seated at the desk reviewing any record or footage he could find of our family’s activity. I could hear his fast flipping, mixed with the occasional pause that indicated a distraction before he had to return to the same document.

I turned to him, recognizing that he hadn’t even stopped for a millisecond in response to my question. And for whatever reason, which I’m sure is documented and explainable, the lack of response filled me with the purest form of rage I’d ever felt. So, I asked it again, demanding an answer from the only other person in the world I could be convinced cared as much as I did about the current situation.

“Do you think she’s still scared?”

“Please, stop.” He immediately replied this time, his hand finally stalling on the paper, his eyes clenching shut for a moment as he begged, “Don’t do this to me.”

“What am I _doing_ , Spencer?” I responded with a palpable bitterness, crossing my arms over my chest more to feel the embrace than defend myself from the pain. But I was glad they were there, because seconds later Spencer’s hands slammed on the table with enough force that his mug fell to the floor.

“ _Torturing_ me _!_ Just _stop **!**_ ” He yelled, his hands then raking through his hair and tugging on the strands as he shielded himself from me the very same way that I had barricaded myself off from him.

“What am I supposed to do, not think about it? Are _you_ not thinking about it?!” I shouted back; my voice hoarse but loud.

His was unfortunately the same, and I cringed at the sound. “Of course I’m thinking about it. I can’t _stop_ thinking about it!”

I could feel the pain, but my brain was trying to shut it out. It was trying to convince me that my own husband was the enemy because it was easier than accepting that this was beyond our control. I didn’t want to fight with him; it wasn’t any more his fault than my own. But how was he handling it so much better than me? How could he be useful when all I could do was watch the sun and watch the hours pass me by while I hurt in the least productive manner.

“But thinking about it isn’t doing anything to bring her back and talking about this certainly won’t help.” He explained, forcing his voice down to an appropriate volume, but unable to control the anger that still bled through.

I shouldn’t have blamed him for being human, but I did.

“Well I can’t just compartmentalize all my feelings like you can.” I cried, walking over to the desk and shutting the file in front of him, desperate to have his attention so that I might be able to feel something besides that pain. Even if it was just another, lesser form of suffering. “I-I can’t just pretend like –“

“I’m not pretending anything.” He cut me off, his hand hovering over mine that remained on the folder. It didn’t touch me, turning in and out of a fist instead. With a deep exhale, Spencer looked up at me with tired eyes that reminded me just how little we’d slept. Still, the even darker bags around them were nothing compared to the redness and tears.

“I’m just trying to use the little energy I do have to try and find our daughter.” He tried to keep himself steady, but he was failing. I could see the frustration in every feature, and the exhaustion transferred between us now that we’d tired our voices.

My husband finally, cautiously lowered his hand onto mine, touching it softly like it would break under the weight of his fingers. “Please, go lay down. This stress isn’t good for you.” He pleaded, staring down at our hands to avoid looking at the only one of our children we could hold that morning.

“I thought you told me that the whole stress causes miscarriages thing was a myth.” I nervously chuckled, wiping away the tears that insisted on staining my cheeks despite having no water left in me. 

“It doesn’t matter, you don’t deserve to suffer.” He answered, continuing the comforting strokes against the back of my hand. I wasn’t sure which of us he was really trying to comfort.

I choked on a sob, the words coming out before I could stop them. I knew they would hurt him. I think that’s why I said them.

“Don’t I, though?”

“No.” He answered, his inflection harsh and high as he struggled to pretend like the words didn’t eat him alive.

“Maybe—“

But my mind wasn’t done destroying us, and no matter how hard I bit my tongue, I couldn’t stop the thought that had been consuming me for twenty hours.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if it was true.”

Spencer clasped both hands around my hand now, bringing it up to his mouth in what looked like a prayer. “You don’t mean that.” He cried, his breathing rate exponentially increasing against my hand.

“I don’t deserve to have another baby.” I said again, feeling the trembling spread from him up my arm despite his best efforts to keep it inside.

“Stop.” He begged so quietly it was almost inaudible, “Please, don’t say that.”

We knew what happened when people lost their children. We saw it so often it almost seemed routine. Understandable. Inevitable. Everything about this pain felt so certain. And although I wanted to feel that fear that we were falling apart like he so clearly did, all I felt was apathy. I needed him to help me, but I didn’t know how to ask for it. So I just said whatever cruel thought came to my mind, hoping that he would be able to sort it out for me.

It wasn’t fair. Then again, none of this was.

“I couldn’t even protect the one we already have, Spencer. Someone took her and I didn’t do anything to stop it.”

“What could you have done?” He sniffled, trying to use that foolproof logic he loved so much to make sense of the chaos. Because there was no rhyme or reason to why these things happened. There was, but there wasn’t. So much of our life was based on pure probability.

I wondered if it was better to know those probabilities in that moment. It didn’t seem like it.

“I could have been there.” I mumbled, watching him as he started to stand from his chair without ever letting go of my hand.

Sluggish but persistent, Spencer walked around the desk so that he could look at me without the barrier between us. He ran a hand over my hair, resting it against the back of my neck as he opened his mouth to speak, but had to stop as his shoulders shook from the sob that wrecked his body.

“If you were there, then it just would have been you that got hurt. A-And I couldn’t have handled that, (y/n).” His eyes were closed, and he brought his head down to rest our foreheads together. He felt so heavy, and I remembered for the first time during this situation that I’d also made a vow to support him in the darkest hour.

And here I was, failing him just as I’d failed our daughter, I thought.

But just as the words crossed my mind, Spencer’s hold on me got tighter, and he shook me ever so slightly as he tried to fight the demons that burned through every happy memory we tried desperately to hold on to.

“I know it looks like I’m handling this well but I’m barely holding it together. And I… I need you to know that I love you. I love you so much and I am so grateful that you are still here with me.” He said through clenched teeth. “We’re going to find her, and we’re going to be together again.”

I wanted to believe him, but that solution seemed so distant. 

“What’s the point of anything good we do in this job if I can’t protect the people who matter?” I finally worked up the courage to ask as we began to sway ever so slightly in the direction of the couch.

“I don’t have an answer to that.” He honestly replied, his mouth curling to the side as he helped lower me onto the couch without any explanation. I knew he wanted me to sleep before I collapsed into nothing, but the thought of sleeping without her…

“I’m so tired, Spencer.” I cried, my head falling to the side and hitting the back of the couch. My husband understood that it wasn’t the kind of tired that could be helped from sleep, so he didn’t tell me to try. Instead, he just took off his sweater and draped it over my shoulders.

“I’m here with you,” he reminded me quietly as I started to fall asleep. “We have each other.” He said as he kissed the top of my head. “Always.”

— _Five Hours Later_ —

My daughter had been missing for 25 hours. In 76% of child homicide cases, the victim was killed within 3 hours of the abduction. After 24 hours passed, 88.5% of the children were dead.

I’ve never considered myself a lucky man. Really, I always sort of thought the world was out to get me. After all, I was currently walking through the doors of a stranger’s house, hoping to find my daughter still alive. It was hard to find hope in a place like this. There were ways to cope with a tired mind, but a tired heart was harder to handle.

Even worse, my seven months pregnant wife was beside me, marching into the danger that might be waiting for us. I wanted to tell her not to come, but we both knew it would be asking the impossible of her. Honestly, we shouldn’t have been alone in this house in the first place, but we just happened to be the closest team members to the scene. It made a twisted sort of sense; we’d looked so hard for her, only to learn she’d been only a few streets away the whole time. That is, if she was still there.

I didn’t want to think about it. My mind was rotating through the possible outcomes on loop, and I knew they wouldn’t stop until I’d seen the truth.

“Go upstairs. I’ll go out the back.” I instructed her, and she obeyed the command without a second’s hesitation. I only let myself feel guilty for a few seconds, because I knew that I was sending her in the least likely direction. I just didn’t want her to be the one to have to find our daughter if things went poorly.

She didn’t deserve that.

I knew very little about the unsub; her name was Darlene, and she’d recently lost her two-year-old daughter. Her daughter, like mine, was suspected to be autistic. It was how the team had figured it out, but that did little to comfort me. She’d taken three other children before she found mine. None of them had made it.

From a distance, I heard the quiet creaking of the back door before I saw it. It hung open, gently tapping against the frame with the breeze. Each time it smacked against the wood; I felt my heart stop.

She was outside. She had to be outside.

Abandoning all protocol exactly like I’d promised not to, I bolted toward the door and out of the house without another thought. In the wind, I heard someone singing. The muscles in my neck tensed so tightly they hurt, but I forced myself to turn towards the sound anyway.

“Darlene Sallow—“ My voice cut out before any other words left my mouth, because I saw her. Wrapped up in a blanket that didn’t belong to her, I saw my daughter in the arms of a murderer.

She was alive. Her tiny face scrunched up as she strained away from the woman that held her swaddled tightly to her chest.

And all I could think was… Didn’t she know? Didn’t she know that my daughter hated tight, confined spaces? That she could only sleep when she was sprawled out among the sheets, but still able to grab my hand? Why would she ever try to force her into the blanket after seeing how hard she would fight?

My hand holding the gun faltered, with every instinct in my body begged me not to point the weapon at my daughter.

“Go away! Leave us alone!” The woman yelled, turning her body away from me so I couldn’t see that face I’d fought so hard to find.

“Hey. Hey, look. It’s alright. Look, I’m putting the gun away.” I whispered, lowering the weapon because it suddenly felt so heavy to hold. I took a step forward as I did so, and I saw the knife in her other hand for the first time. “Hi. I-I just… I just want to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to you, go away.” She spat back. And when she dropped her hand to rest the knife against my daughter’s back, I swore I felt the chill of the metal against my back, too.

“I can’t do that.” I said, my voice raspy and desperate in a way I never wanted my daughter to hear. There were so many parts of this I hoped that she would forget, and one of them was the fact that I had to pretend like I didn’t know who she was.

Would she remember that? Would she understand, even just for a fleeting second? The idea terrified me just as much as physical harm, because I never, ever wanted my daughter to feel like we’d forgotten her. That we’d abandoned her and left her on her own.

But I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know enough about this woman or her background. I was flying by the seat of my pants, and I was certainly not an aviator.

“Darlene, wh—who is this with you?” I forced the words out, and the smile on her face made me nauseous.

“My daughter.” She answered, relieved to finally say the words to someone else.

Swallowing down the correction I wanted so desperately to make, I continued to step closer while trying to remain non-threatening. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done; my imagination was still running wild with possible outcomes. I prayed to God that my daughter ended up alive and well in my arms, because if she didn’t… there were only a few endings, and none of them were happy.

“Do you love her?” I asked, taking a few steps to the side in an attempt to see her face again. I succeeded for just one fleeting second before she realized, turning away from me again.

“Of course I love my daughter. I would do anything for her. That’s why I’m protecting her!” Darlene shouted, squeezing tighter to the tiny body in her arms. The action was enough to force a quiet, panicked whine from my daughter.

The sound felt so much like a punch in the gut that I actually doubled forward, my hand on my chest as I took deep breaths to combat the hyperventilation. “Look at her. She’s scared.” I cried, hearing as the noises from my daughter became louder and faster. “S-She…” 

The strained word was followed by a shrill cry tearing through the air. It was a scream that I’d only ever heard once before. It was from the first night I’d left her, and in trying to follow me she’d fallen and scraped her knees.

But that wasn’t as simple as a pair of scraped knees. I could help those; with a little bit of ointment and a whole lot of kisses, I could stop that scream and replace it with something else. Instead, in that moment, she felt the sharp point of a knife at her back as she tried to fight against someone to follow her dad’s voice. Her dad, lying and pretending like he didn’t know her.

I couldn’t do it. The tears covered my bloodshot eyes and each breath felt like fire, and I needed my daughter to hear my voice. I needed her to know that I was here, and I was trying to get to her. And in the back of my head, I knew that my primary motivation was that if this was the last thing that she’d ever hear, I wanted it to be something else.

“Her name is (y/c/n).”

“No, it’s not.” The woman quickly corrected, her eyes narrowing and her jaw clenching.

“Yes, it is. That’s her name, and I know that because she’s _my_ daughter.” I responded even louder, my steps towards her fewer but more purposeful. “She’s my daughter, and I love her, and I want her back.” I explained, just wishing that the fates wouldn’t punish me for speaking the truth to a scared little girl who needed to hear it as badly as I needed to say it.

Darlene was panicking. In that panic, I saw the knife turn away for the briefest second before it was back on the squirming toddler in her arms. “You don’t get to have her! She’s mine!”

I just needed her to do that again. I needed her to move the knife so that I could get it away. But I also needed to be closer. There were so many things, so many moving parts in a system that was too fast for even me to comprehend.

“Please. Please, just… let her go. She’s too little. She’s scared. Look at her.” I begged, the sound of screaming still filling the air, followed by the familiar screeching of sirens. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, but I knew we were running out of time. Once more guns showed up, everything would quickly devolve into chaos. “Please. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want her to see anything scary or bad.”

The world was so fucking loud. I just needed it to be quiet. I needed to think, to find the right thing to say before none of it mattered anymore. But what can you say? What do you do when your whole world is turning to nothing in front of you?

“I’m so sorry that you lost your daughter but… Please don’t take mine.” I said through broken sobs, my hands in fists that still tried to pray. “Please, I love her. I just want her to come home.”

There was a terrifying clarity that washed over the woman, a large smile spreading over her cheeks as she laughed. “She is home.” She whispered, and time slowed to a stop. The too-bright sun shone too bright in the reflection of the blade as she raised it into the air.

“She won’t have to be scared anymore.”

“No!” That word, the final plea of a father, was masked by something else. And despite how slow the world was moving; it took me too long to hear it. My body lunged forward before the boom hit me.

But the bullet reached her first.

I watched the fine mist coat the leaves of the bushes behind her, barely able to catch the limp body of a dead woman before she toppled to the ground with my daughter still in her arms. I’d never moved as quickly as I did in tearing her from the woman’s grip, not even pausing for a second to lower the deceased to the ground.

The blanket, loosened from the constant kicking was easy to unravel, and inside I found her, my beautiful little girl with her eyes clamped shut, her hands over her ears as her body trembled.

There was so much I should have done. I should have taken off my kevlar, should have taken the knife and thrown it far away. I should have cared about the dead woman laying on the ground in front of us, but I didn’t. Because my daughter was alive, and she was scared. I pulled her to me, turning to finally see the direction the bullet had come from.

And from the second story window, I saw my wife, her hands still clutching the gun as they hung out of the window. Her eyes were stuck on me, an exhausted, delirious smile finally gracing her face as the world suddenly returned to full speed. She turned immediately, taking off in the direction of the door as I lifted our daughter and ran in the same direction.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Daddy’s here.” I cried as I heard the small cries start again, this time tired and lower than before. Holding the back of her head and feeling her tiny hands grab fistfuls of my hair from my neck, I tried not to sound as relieved as I felt.

“It’s okay. Everything’s okay now.”

There were other people rushing into the scene, but none of them were the face I needed to see. I beat her to the door, and an excited wail echoed in the old house as she saw us.

When she crashed into us, my body finally released all of the tension that had formed over the past 27 hours. And I actually laughed at the way her belly got in the way of the hug, because everything felt like it was allowed to be funny again. The sun wasn’t blinding anymore as it filtered through the windows. The air didn’t smell of dust and hatred; it just smelled of baby powder and soap.

“Mommy and Daddy have got you.” My wife whispered, smiling through the deep breaths from all the excitement. “Everything is going to be okay.”

It wasn’t hard to find hope anymore, because she was in my arms again. 


End file.
